


A Strange Choice of Child Minder

by Brennah_K



Category: Dr. Strange - Fandom, Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-06-08 04:09:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15234990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brennah_K/pseuds/Brennah_K
Summary: Death doesn’t have time for this. He really doesn’t. With the Winchester stirring matters up in the US, the Muggle ‘Middle East’ affairs dragging on, and other matters going on behind the scenes that mortals could never imagine much less understand - all in addition to his regular workload - the last thing that Death needed to distract him was the welfare of a direly-neglected and abused child, barely-turned-eleven, who was about to start at a new school and new life that he would most likely not survive the first year of, without Death’s direct intervention. Seriously! He did not have time for this.Fate had different ideas, however, and set the child on the path of becoming Death’s new master (and long-awaited replacement) if Death  could keep the child alive long enough to take up his cloak, staff, ring, and burdens. If not, who knew how many more centuries Death would have to wait for another replacement.What he needed to find was a child-minder he could trust with the care and safety of a child who was destined to become a cosmic force, but whom that minder would be, he had no idea, or at least he didn't until he was unexpectedly drawn to the death of another near cosmic entity, called the Ancient One.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please note, this is the result of being kidnapped by your muses. I had no intention to deviate from catching up on sadly neglected WIPS, when this came up out of nowhere tossed a lasso around me and started dragging me off course. On the bright side, I think there will only be three chaps total (and no, I absolutely never said the same about _Gringott's Lesser Known Branch_. Never. Ever.).

”Onomyra Ansara,” Death greeted the Ancient One as she faded from the view of her latest ‘prized’ student, “Your time in this realm is complete.” 

“You have just been waiting to say that; haven’t you?” She chided him, in good humor. 

”Perhaps, but can you truly begrudge the sentiment? Considering the many times i have been called by fate to moments that should have meant your death if you had not been connected to other dimensions, only to stand by waiting needlessly and fall even further behind in my schedule? ... … As I am currently.” He sighed.

“Oh, I do apologize, allow me to compensate you, if only slightly for your misspent time." She teased, before continuing. "My student,” only to pause again to study the distraught appearing former surgeon, “of the many possibilities of his future that I have foreseen, one of the most promising is one in which he takes on a certain ward, who is of interest to you.”

Glancing over to study the man, Death’s first instinct is to refute her suggestion. Simply looking at the Ancient One’s student, it was obvious that the man could hardly even be called a student - there was so little trace of cosmic knowledge in the man’s manner and bearing. If he had studied at all, it could only have been for bare months or a year - at the outside. There was no way, the student could be prepared to raise the child whom would hold the mysteries of Death in his very being.

“Do not trust so deeply in your misperceptions, old friend. You view the world in the light and darkness of the awesome knowledge you have grown into, but forget the image shape and feel of the raw untrained unmolded potential you once held and once were. As a result, it seems you cannot imagine and so reject the possibility that others equally raw can grow their roles - as you once did. Given the care of your ward, he will learn that the world does not revolve around his whims, the need to balance his responsibilities with the needs of another. They will grow together, and it will put him on the path to true greatness. But of course, do not do this for him, or the people and worlds that will benefit from taking this path. The Doctor will soon be pitted against an ancient enemy, whom he will not be prepared for. Watch him, and then decide his ability to guide your ward.

”We will see.” was all that Death offered, before returning to his duties.

Despite his initial doubts, Death did in fact, keep as close of an eye on on the Ancient One’s student as his time and duties permitted, and was decidedly bemused when the untrained sorcerer nearly stumbled into the rank of Sorcerer Supreme by taking control of the mysteries of time and using them with surprising deftness to negotiate a truce between dimensions that had been at in conflict for centuries. 

Regrettably, neither Death nor Dr. Strange had been in ideal circumstances to take possession of the child before the end of the child’s first year… and nearly the child’s life. Death, himself, had only narrowly arrived three breaths before the child would have suffered irreversible damage locked in a death grip with a possessed wizard - suffering the ravages of an ill-cast curse, laid on them both under the disguise of ‘blood - protections’. 

While ending the potential death-grip required only Death's touch on the man to draw the full brunt of the incendiary curse into the possessed wizard turning his body to ash, removing the as-yet-mortal child proved slightly more complicated as he considered the ramifications of his various preconceived scenarios for removing the child and their likely ramifications. Several minutes passed before he found himself at an impasse between several options with his schedule falling further and further behind, so Death finally acted on impulse - for the first time in centuries - and simply waved his wand leaving the outcome of his cast to the whim of his sisters, known to the humans as magic and fate.

Always slightly more inventive than Death tended to be, the two swept through the chamber studying the scene before smirking to each other. Leaning over the child, Fate ran a finger across his forehead pushing the sweat-damp tendrils back to his hairline, as his eyes fluttered, and pressed a kiss into his forehead sending him to sleep, with a murmured, “Welcome, Little Cousin” before stripping the child of his clothing with a wave of her hand and sending it to lay beside the possessed professor’s ashy remains. The child's wand followed; although, it landed a few feet further away - giving the appearance that it had fallen from the child's grip at some point in the conflict. Magic summoned the bit of Death’s cape that he had gifted the boy's ancestors, and catching it, gave it a quick shake to duplicate it. 

Ignoring Death's bemused stare, Magic dropped the duplicated cape haphazardly across the child’s staged clothing then lifted the original shard of Death’s cape and whistled - summoning the child’s near-bonded owl familiar. Addressing the distressed owl in a coo, as it landed near the child’s head and bobbed back and forth, hooting and nipping at the child clearly attempting to wake him, Fate explained, "He but sleeps, Hedwig. Soon though we must send him from here to a being who will raise, protect, and guide him while foster his ascension and destiny. ... You may not accompany him, in your current form; however, if you are willing to release your current vessel and take another,” Magic offered, holding up the cape, “it would be possible.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, guided by instinct as much as true understanding, the child’s familiar launched itself at the cape held in the eternal being’s hand - will and determination glowing in its yellow gaze. As the creature struck the cape with a startled shriek, its physical form fell - lifeless - at Magic’s sandaled feet while its spirit passed into the cloak - filling it with the familiar’s sentience and devotion. In turn, the cloak itself transformed, the flat edge of its hood pulling out and curling into a beakish point, its back panels lengthening and broadening until its folds spread resembled the fanned tail of a landing owl, and the cloak’s front and side panels splitting and curling outward taking the shapes of two broad wings before they refolded, inward, causing feather like shadows despite the inside panels of cloak remaining bone white. Of its own accord, when the transformation finished, the cloak lifted from her grip, extending its side panels, and flew across the room to wrap itself around the once-clothed child. 

Taking up the owl’s emptied shell, Magic held it out, prompting, “Fate, if you will,” and waited as her sister lifted the child’s hand, sliced into the child’s palms with a claw-like nail, lengthening the child’s lifelines as she pulled the slicing nail past the edges of each palm before letting the child’s collecting blood drop from the tip to the tail of the limp husk, before finally sealing, though not completely healing, the cuts. Although they hadn’t spoken of it, she and her sister were of one mind on easing the child’s way with her new guardian, or more to the point, easing the guardian’s way in learning to care for the child.

Focusing her attention on the bloodied husk, Magic pressed her will into the familiar, drawing on the traces of the child’s magic left by their nearly completed bond and the child’s blood to transfigure the familiar’s former vessel into an equally lifeless replica of the child’s form that she sent with a wave of her hand directly into the child's clothing- refilling the child’s emptied clothing and duplicated cloak with the transfigured husk, then cast the incendiary curse onto the staged body- reducing it to nearly the same ruin as the possessed professor’s body but leaving a small recognizable piece of the child’s skull, scalp, hair and upper face as though it had been seemingly protected from complete destruction by a small portion of undestroyed cloak before the cloak itself had caught fire. With the scene set, Fate and Magic turned back to Death, mischief glowing in their eyes.

”What are you two up to?" he demanded with a resigned sigh. From the scene they’d set, he suspected he knew, but wanted confirmation.

”Little Cousin is the last of his line, is he not?” Fate asked with a giggle.

”You know that he is.” Death agreed. Perhaps this wasn’t going the direction he thought. 

”Well, aren’t the hallows set to return to you on the death of the brother’s lines?” Magic suggested, drawing a deathly grin from her brother.

”Why yes, yes, they are.” Death agreed, extending his hand to summon the two missing hollows, which individually turned to ash in their respective locations, passing insubstantially through the shadow paths before reforming in his hand. 

After glancing between the child’s cloak, the elder wand, and the resurrection stone, Death gripped the elder wand’s ends pressing it inward and forcing the wand to shrink, reshape, and pale until it was barely the length of the longest bone of his smallest finger with a tear-shaped bulb on each that flattened to stylized arrowheads decorated with the combined symbols of his hallows. Into the center of the piece, he set and pressed the smoky crystal sealing them together with his magic before grasping the child’s now animated cloak and creating two fitted ‘button’ holes for the now bone colored elder wand to set in, fastening the cloak at the child’s throat with the stone and teardrops inside the gap in cloak’s collar and the stylized arrowheads pushed outward through the button holes with a very slight curling outwards around the throat. 

”Ooooohhh, I like it.” Fate squealed, clapping with childish pleasure, while her sister smiled and nodded her agreement. As the youngest of the three entities, Magic and Death frequently indulged her antics, often letting her have her whims, as long as her plots and fancies didn’t get too convoluted or upset critical balances.

Satisfied with the scene his sisters had set, Death gathered cloaked child, thanked his sisters, stepped into the shadows, and allowed time to reassert itself.

Three floors above, Headmaster Dumbledore stared, aghast, at the thin line of falling ash that had once been his elder wand as it slowly trickled to the floor, then jerked as the warning spells he’d cast on one of the Dark Lords hidden possessions went off, at the exact same moments as the warnings that he had cast on the stone rang loudly in the back of his mind, demanding his presence. 

Stumbling past, Dumbledore only haphazardly managed a wandless cushioning charm as he jumped down through trapdoor, landed, and ran - barely noticing that he had been bitten by ‘Fluffy’ as he hurried to the passageway.. Much less the unseen form of Fate who stuck out her tongue and mocked him in her thoughts: "Let's see how you like someone messing with your plans, Meddling Prat” as he passed.

Elsewhere, as the Doctor’s reversal of time restored the Hong Kong and London Sanctums, Death gently laid the child on a divan in the London Sanctum, then turned to collect the London Master whose death had occurred only breaths before the earliest point that the reversal would restore, but whose collection had been delayed by Death’s need to relocate his future master. 

“Sol Rama,” Death Intoned, “Your time in this realm is complete.” 

”Thank you,” The mystic master answered, grateful for the relief and at peace, able to see the sanctum restored.

Reminded of the duties he was increasingly falling behind in, Death left his charge in his sister's care and returned to his duties. Magic had her own duties to see to, however, and only pause briefly to study the child before bending to place a gentle kiss on the boy’s forehead, even as she cursed him:

    _Death’s child though you will prosper,_
    _Growing eternal in power and grace,_
    _Tribulations you must transcend,_
    _To forge a mentor and a friend,_
    _Of one who knows not how to be,_
    _  
_
    _But in himself, you, will he see._
    _  
_
    _Though robbed of childlike trust by the life you've faced,_
    _Neither strength nor independence shall secure your place,_
    _So need and weakness shall join my gifts_
    _To guide a doctor’s conscience from its selfish drifts,_
    _Though he has been wont to heed charity..._
    _  
_
    _In himself, it is you he will see._
    _  
_
    _Distant, now, will be your past, shrouded and hidden,_
    _Knowing no sanctum or home but this place, unbidden, yet..._
    _No willing words will move thine lips,_
    _Till my keenest gifts dance from thine fingertips,_
    _Until from him, you've gained a child’s trust and faith to reface lost memory,_
    _  
_
    _And, in him, yourself do you see._
    _  
_
    _Alike, in relics and magic, in strengths and in strife,_
    _A mentor to guide and guard throughout your short and eternal life,_
    _Seeding the wisdoms, which will shape you in Death’s eternal grace._
    _Mentor and Father, Savior and Solace,_
    _Blessed Be and Know Always Our Grace_

       
__  
  


Sealing the blessings and curse with a final kiss, Magic released her physical form and returned to the cosmic paths of energy in a shimmer of dust that barely held the curious and uncomprehending stares of the Mystic Masters, as they entered the sanctum hall. Having just finished inspecting the Hong Kong Sanctum, the masters were anticipating a much worse state of affairs in the London Sanctum. While Master Wong and Dr. Strange had both anticipated the probability of finding Master Sol Rama in a state of unconsciousness or death when he had failed to respond to their attempts to contact him, neither master could have contemplated also finding an unconscious, noticeably injured child, completely bare except for the unfamiliar relic that seemed to have no intention of letting either of them near. 

The relic, a sentient cloak, even went so far as to try to slap their hands away with the flap of its side panel, until Steven’s own cloak of levitation caught its edge and seemed to share some form of unspoken communication before the child’s cloak finally relented - allowing the Doctor to see enough to assess the child’s condition which included not only signs of obvious malnutrition but also a pair of bleeding and badly-seared, ash-covered hands. 


	2. Chapter 2

Silently watching the cluster of training mystics through the sanctum window, Stephen Strange studied the smallest and youngest among them, observing the progress the child was making in harnessing and projecting the energy drawn from from the dimensional nexus into the basic stem, circle, and shield patterns that the students would build to cast spells; conjure shields and weapons; construct, cleanse, and heal. The child’s progress perplexed Stephen; on one hand, the silent child appeared to have easily and fully accepted the existence of magic and that It could be manipulated with the proper study and practice, on the other the child could not seem to focus on drawing energy from external sources and frequently only managed to succeed in manifesting the basic sigils and components by drawing on his own life force - a limiting and impractical source that could not long support even low level shields or spells. Worse yet, given the child's slow physical recovery, Stephen and Master Harim were strongly considering banning the child's use of magic to prevent the child from drawing too deeply on his life force before his body could safely support the draw.

The drawback of doing so, however, was that it would deny the child the potential to access interdimensional energies that could foster the child’s physical healing, which in itself Stephen found equally perplexing. Stephen had expected the boy’s malnutrition due to his stunted height; easily visible ribs, spine, and joints; his weak eyesight, and the poor condition of his hair and nails. The damage keeping his hands bandaged and curled self-protectively was similarly to be expected from the rather severe burns and cuts that oddly seemed to cover only the child’s palms. What Stephen had not unexpected nor could explain were the child’s seeming inability to speak and indicators of post incident, retrograde amnesia despite an absence of any other indicators of concussion or other brain injury. 

Stephen would have even been inclined to believe that the child was intentionally staying silent, were it not for the fact that the child seemed as frustrated if not more-so with both his silence and lack of memory - having been caught, more than once, sitting in front of a mirror staring at his reflection, determination dark in his eyes, trying to force himself to speak or recall some detail of his life before, well after being put to bed. Keenly reminded of his own determined self-confrontations in various mirrors in the early days of his recovery from the car accident, Stephen had been willing to turn a blind eye to the child’s late night activities until the already pallid skin beneath his eyes began to grey from lack of sleep, when he and Master Hamir began to supplement the child’s evening meals with chamomile tea and soporific foods. 

”Master Strange, Master Wong indicated you wished to discuss the Cloaked One.” Master Harim interrupted Stephen’s musings drawing him to the present and the realization that the mystics had completed their practice and moved on to their other duties, which for the child meant assisting Wong exploring/inspecting the sanctum (on the child’s part) and recording every task that needed completion (Wong’s part) on a scroll to be hung from a post in the central hall and marked off as each task was done, with every member participating until the tasks were complete. Ironically the community’s participation had been rather invigorated lately after someone noticed that the child would attempt to take on any task left incomplete. 

”The Cloaked One?” Well, considering that their late Sorceress Supreme had gone by the title “The Ancient One” for who knows how many centuries, Stephen probably shouldn’t have been surprised. Especially given the that cloak generally refused to even let the child out of its proximity and acted in a manner that could only be described as sulking in the rare instances that the child was not actively wearing it. The cloak had, in fact, throne a very boisterous tantrum when the sorcerer had removed it to confirm that it was neither parasitic, nor possessed (or otherwise harmful to the child through curse or leaching charm), and had only calmed when Stephen returned it to the child’s room to observe that the silent child had been noticeably distressed by its absence and took significant and obvious comfort in it’s return, clutching it unconsciously in his sleep and stroking it in self-soothing gestures over the following days whenever he seemed stressed by the slow pace of his recovery or overwhelmed in his attempts to integrate into the sanctum’s community.

”There is no harm in honoring the child’s request.” Master Harim reminded mildly, giving one more example of the child’s determination - in refusing a temporary name until his own could be remembered or discovered. As inconvenient as that had at first seemed, the absence of other children in regular residence attached an obvious title to the boy, even though he frequently grimaced at hearing himself called, 'The Child'. ‘The Cloaked One’ would at least have the advantage of being less likely to offend the child’s preteen ego.

“Very true” Stephen agreed, “May I ask your opinion of the Cloaked One’s progress?”

”For one who has no trust, The Cloaked One progresses exceedingly well. He has easily picked up the first terrace in Radek’s Magical Sanskrit and has demonstrated understanding the first through seventeenth symbols and their declensions. Master Wong is experimenting with methods to test the thoroughness of The Cloaked One’s understanding; however,it is clear that The Cloaked One is ready to begin studying the First Vedic Scroll of Primary Systems.” Master Hamir reported, surprising Stephen on several levels. 

While he had not made the mistake of assuming the child was developmentally slow due to his inability to speak, Stephen had not expected the child to have progressed so far, despite the ample reading time the child’s slow recovery had provided. It was a shame that the child wasn’t headed to medical school, with the determination and aptitude he was already displaying, Stephen would have had fierce competition if he were still in his field when the child… 

~ wait… what ~ 

”Master Hamir, please elaborate on your first statement: that the child has no trust. What do you mean by that?” As far as Stephen had noticed, the child had settled in remarkably well, better -in fact- than Stephen himself had when he first entered Kamar Taj, and had not in anyway that Stephan recognized shown his distrust or otherwise acted out as far as Stephen had seen.

Stephen could not help but wonder ~What Master Hamir had seen that he had not?~

”It is much the same as when first I found Wong and brought him to the Sanctum, though Wong was more tender in years and did not adjust so easily to the concept of dimensions and magic. Yet, Wong bore many of the behaviors you may observe in The Cloaked One: a reticence to eat before others have taken their portions, the tendency to take food portions too small to support even his small frame until it is clear that no one desires additional portions if food remains, a seeming need to take the sanctum’s tasks on himself - alone- as if to earn our tolerance, his unwarranted frustration in not keeping up with the progress of decades-older mystics who study beside him, a solemness abnormal for an adolescent, as well as the tendency of withdrawing from conversations even where it is apparent that he would say more if he felt his presence were desired. There are other small behaviors, of course, however, those I have listed are those most easily observed.” 

”I see,” Stephen responded slowly, having himself observed some of the tendencies that Master Hamir noted, but dismissed them as of lesser importance than the child’s physical concerns. Perhaps foolishly so...

Having, on his own part, barely become accustomed himself to living and working within the Kamar Taj and Sanctum community (much less to learning to view himself as an equal among equals) and having even less experience with adolescent development, Stephen’s first thought regarding the child’s potential inability to trust went to the only example of a disillusioned mystic he had interacted with to date, Kaecilius, and the near catastrophic outcome of the late sorcerer’s disillusionment.

If The Ancient One, possessing centuries more experience and knowledge than himself and having the information of what had broken Kaecillius, had been unable to keep her student from going astray, what hope could he have? As it was, they knew so little about the child, outside of the fact that he had impossibly arrived into the midst of the freshly retroactively-restored London sanctum - showing no trace of the battle that had destroyed the sanctum - by a means that should not have been possible with the London sanctum locked down. Not only that, but the boy had arrived wearing a clearly sentient relic that they had found no record of in even the most sacred (and restricted) tomes and scrolls, had adapted easily to the concepts of mystical forces, and was gaining the knowledge of how to call on forces and energies that could lead him down dark and destructive paths.

”This calls even further into question the decision not ban the child from practicing mystic arts?” He asked, testing his growing concern against Master Hamir’s greater experience both as a father and a master of their art.

”You are thinking of Kaecillius?”

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes or toss off an irreverent 'duh’, Stephen restrained himself to nodding.

”Do not.”

~ Well, that’s ever-so-helpful and informative. ~ Stephen thought to himself, pleased that it wasn't accompanied with even the slightest trace of a sneer. Thankfully, before his need to ask overcame his decorum, Master Hamir stepped back from the window and turned before pausing in silent invitation to join him as he walked.

”You may find it amusing.” Master Hamir began as he walked, before trailing off with an amused air almost certainly knowing from Stephen’s frequent comments in his first days in Kamar Taj that it reminded Stephen overly much of the Hollywood Cinematic cliche ‘Kung Fu master pause before saying something so supposedly wise that the student won’t understand it until the exact moment he needs to use the knowledge against his opponent’.

Exposure to Kamar Taj and Master Hamir’s peculiar sense of humor had moderately mellowed Stephen's tendency toward impatience, in the interim, and despite knowing it was more than a bit ridiculous, he felt just the tiniest bit proud of himself for being able to forestall his natural inclination to prompt the elder mystic for more… until he matched the elders pace and noticed a slight, amused twist on Master Hamir’s lips as he continued:

”Remembering the Ancient One's most common chiding in the months before her death was on the subject of your ego, it can only be counted as the greatest irony that her gravest mistake with Kaecillius was in failing to recognize her own arrogance and being blinded by her own opinion and authority. " 

And ~ okayyyy~ Stephen had no idea what to do with that comment, but thankfully Master Hamir didn't seem to expect an answer as he continued.

"Kaecillius came to us open in his intent to learn and use any of the mystic arts or dimensions that would restore his wife and children to him in any form. Many voiced their concern that Kaecillius would be drawn to arts and methods, which would have enabled him the semblance of returning at least their physical form, though with horrific and far-reaching costs for doing so and cautioned her against I giving him access to these temptations before he transcended his grief. The Ancient one, however, kept her own counsel, regarding Kaecillius bringing him into the sanctum and inducting him into the mystic arts allowing him, as all are allowed, to pursue the studies as he desired - believing that under her guidance, he would willingly turn away from attempting to achieve the singular goal he had dedicated himself and his studies to achieving even as he learning to recognize the proofs of her using the dimensional sources she denied him.”

”Whoooh,” Stephen answered with a disbelieving huff. “... Even I could have told you _THAT_ wasn't happening.” Although he didn't know the full back story, he was finding it difficult to understand the Ancient One's thinking on this.

”Yes, that is why you need not compare The Cloaked One to Kaecillius. Your manner may imitate arrogance, but where the Ancient One would blame your fear of failure for inhibiting your potential for greatness, others see that accepting the possibility of failure is grounding and the drive to transcend failure is what each of us must work toward. You will not make the same mistakes the Ancient One did - relying solely on her own judgement and wisdom."

”I will just have to take your word for it,” Stephen commented, unconvinced.

”Self-doubt is an equal weakness to arrogance.” The elder cautioned. “Contemplate on our discussion if affirmation is required. Would it have occurred if such was not the case?”

The conversation came to a seemingly natural end - no doubt to Master Hamir's plan- as they met up with Master Wong and the child. Taking the silent cue as writ, Stephen greeted the others before asking: 

“Master Hamir, Master Wong, can The Cloaked One be spared from daily tasks for a short time?” When the child's cloak seemed to puff up and preen at the implied notice, Stephen wasn't the only the one to pause and watch the reaction with amusement, even the child seemed amused if embarrassed -- his cheeks flushing lightly. Stephen continued, keeping his tone utterly dry, to avoid embarrassing the child further,”I would like to check his hands after training and introduce him to the Ars Notoria and another few texts that I believe he may find of interest.”


End file.
